Group letter requests Portsmouth retain conditional-use permit

Saturday

PORTSMOUTH — A group made up of mostly city residents and business owners has created an online open letter to the City Council asking it to retain the city's controversial conditional-use permit.

PORTSMOUTH — A group made up of mostly city residents and business owners has created an online open letter to the City Council asking it to retain the city's controversial conditional-use permit.

The letter states that repealing it from the zoning ordinance "sends a message of no confidence from the City Council to our land use boards."

The letter, which had been signed by 174 people as of Friday afternoon, implores city councilors to reconsider their recent 5-4 vote to repeal the conditional-use permit. The permit gives the Historic District Commission the ability to approve building heights over 45 feet.

"Speaking to people face-to-face at local coffee shops and at local bars and restaurants, I haven't met anyone who wants to see the CUP disappear," city resident Jason Boucher, who helped create the letter, said in an e-mail to the Portsmouth Herald. "We hope that many of the people who signed the letter will be present at the City Council meeting on April 7."

The City Council has scheduled its third reading on the proposed repeal for that date.

Mayor Robert Lister introduced the amendment to repeal the conditional-use permit in January, after hearing from a number of city residents who shared their concern about the pace and the height of many of the new downtown developments.

That amendment came just four months after the previous council voted to amend the zoning ordinance to create an across-the-board building height limit of 45 feet in the downtown, but gave the Historic District Commission the ability to approve taller buildings up to 60 feet high through the conditional-use permit.

The city's Planning Board, however, held a public hearing on Lister's proposed amendment Feb. 20 and voted 7-2 to keep the conditional-use permit, but that the criteria for approval needed to be changed to meet "a total of four criteria," according to Planning Director Rick Taintor.

Boucher and the other residents who signed the online letter are asking the City Council to maintain the conditional-use permit "with the modifications recommended by the Planning Board."

"We as the city stand to lose the ability to negotiate for valuable trade-offs that could improve Portsmouth for all of us," the letter states. "Eliminating the CUP will remove opportunity for negotiation at the moment when the city has the most leverage."

Boucher states in the e-mail that the people who signed the letter believe "so many people that we've talked to are for keeping the CUP — we just need to demonstrate this to the City Council and we think this is the best way forward."

The letter may be viewed at http://bit.ly/cup-ports.

Chris Greiner, the executive director of 3S Artspace, said during an interview earlier this week that although he is not a city resident, he has closely followed the debate about the conditional-use permit.

Stressing that he was speaking for himself and not in his role for 3S Artspace, Greiner stated, "I've always had strong opinions about city planning issues and it seemed like it was the right time to stick my neck out."

He said the online letter was written to give people an easy way "to express their goals to the council."

"Our goal in addition to submitting the letter ... is to have some percentage of the folks who signed it stand in support of the letter," Greiner said.

He believes that keeping the conditional-use permit will give the land-use boards "the flexibility they need as the city grows and changes."

The letter also pointed out that if the council votes to repeal the conditional-use permit in the hopes of stifling growth, they will fail.

"The fact of the matter is Portsmouth will continue to grow," the letter states. "I believe it can grow in a measured responsible way, and allowing the conditional-use permit with the revisions recommended by the Planning Board is the best way forward for Portsmouth."

City Councilor Stefany Shaheen, who voted against the permit repeal, said she has seen the petition and hopes it might persuade one of her fellow councilors to change their vote at the third reading.

"I appreciate the positions the other councilors have taken, but it's frustrating to me that we're going to miss out on seeing how well this could work after we've only had it in place for six months," Shaheen said.

She said the conditional-use permit, especially when its combined with form-based zoning, will "give our land-use boards the ability to help shape projects."

The City Council by a 5-4 vote approved the second reading of a proposal introduced by Lister to eliminate the city's controversial conditional-use permit. Assistant Mayor Jim Splaine, who voted in support of the repeal, said Friday he will not change his vote.

"I'm certainly not going to change my position," Splaine said. "I think it's part of the process and this will move us faster toward the issue of creating a master plan for the North End."

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